ISRO's Successful Launch of NISAR Satellite
On July 30, 2025, ISRO successfully launched the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) satellite from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh.
Launch Details
- The satellite was carried by the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-F16).
- The satellite was injected into a sun-synchronous orbit 18 minutes later.
Key Features of NISAR
- NISAR is the first satellite jointly developed by ISRO and NASA.
- It has a mission life of five years.
- Equipped with dual-frequency Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR): NASA's L-band and ISRO's S-band.
- Uses NASA’s 12-meter unfurlable mesh reflector antenna and ISRO’s modified I3K satellite bus.
- Utilizes SweepSAR technology for observing the earth with a 242 km swath and high spatial resolution.
Applications and Capabilities
- Provides all-weather, day-and-night data at 12-day intervals.
- Detects small changes on earth such as ground deformation, ice sheet movement, and vegetation dynamics.
- Additional applications include sea ice classification, ship detection, shoreline monitoring, storm characterization, soil moisture changes, surface water resource mapping, and disaster response.
Significance
- This is the first instance of a GSLV placing a satellite in a sun-synchronous polar orbit.
- Success follows earlier setbacks in ISRO's previous missions, notably the PSLV-C61/EOS-09 and NVS-02 satellite missions.
